Shrugging Atlas:If people thought the GOP Presidential candidates were the B-list of the Party this year, just farking wait until they get a hold of the VP options.

Early in the primaries, the Grauniad described the Republican field as a veritable "Who's That?" of American politics, some of whom were not even a household name in their own households. It's going to be hard to top that level of mockery, but I'm sure they'll try.

Mikey1969:Whether the Mittster paid taxes or no, this is at least as credible as the Birth Certificate thing, why can't THIS dominate the news for 2 or 3 years straight, give the Right a taste of their own medicine?

Dimensio:As I have stated previously: until President Obama releases his complete educational transcripts from kindergarten through college, admission applications for the same, his entire medical history, the entire medical history of his mother, the microfilm of his birth certificate and every passport that he has ever used ever, then requests for Mr. Romney's tax returns are not reasonable and hypocritical.

I can't say this in enough places. His wife wants us to make assumptions based on how he has lived his life.

As chair of the audit committee at Marriott, he signed off on the use of a terribly illegal tax shelter called Son of BOSS. We know he has no problem with being a tax cheat. Not a careful or aggressive planner, a tax cheat engaging in illegal activities. If he was unaware then he was remiss in his duties as a member of the board either through carelessness or inattention, allowing subordinates to run mad, which would also be a terrible indicator for his ability to serve as president.

It would not be surprising to find out he cheated on his own taxes using tax shelters and/or participated in the 2009 OVDI (offshore voluntary disclosure initiative) amnesty program for people who had secret undisclosed Swiss and other foreign accounts. The timing dovetails perfectly with the returns he did release.

Kevin72:Bungles: Kevin72: Bungles: There's mild chatter in the Freep-verse that the person could be the one and only Sarah Palin (which is theoretically possible, via the McCain campaign), as a means the rise to power at the convention.

Entirely unlikely to be true, but an hilarious fantasy.

NO. A hilarious fantasy. But not "an" unless you pronounce it "'ilarious" which I doubt. It's not just you on snapping at just now, it's all the birdbrains who say that and things like "an historic" pronouncing the 'h'.

/rant off.

Given I'm British, you can stick your grammatical idiocy up you chuffpipe, as I'm entirely correct. British English and Australian English (and even several US accent) swallow the h on "hilarious" and "historic" when they're in a sentence (although not when alone) in exactly the way most accents do with "hour".

Although Americans bizarrely do the same thing with "herb" when no-one else does.

I did allow for "ilarious" which I doubted when writing but now accept. My real problem is with Americans who say "an historic" and do pronounce the 'h' I guess they're trying to sound sophisticated and British but their fakery hurts my ears.

I'll let you off then, as I also hate Americans adopting bizarre accents and grammatical quirks. We've had Madonna squatting on our shores for years..

friday13:Dimensio: As I have stated previously: until President Obama releases his complete educational transcripts from kindergarten through college, admission applications for the same, his entire medical history, the entire medical history of his mother, the microfilm of his birth certificate and every passport that he has ever used ever, then requests for Mr. Romney's tax returns are not reasonable and hypocritical.

To THIS DAY I STILL have no idea if you are a troll or not...

would be a bold quid pro quo on Mittens' part. Tax returns in exchange for BO's college transcripts and scholarly publications. Though, I suspect that Mitt's returns are quite a bit more damning than BO's transcripts so it won't happen.

I wonder if Harry Reid's source is talking about they years that Romney was Governor of MA. He pledged and did not take the salary of Governor. Not sure how that affects his income tax rate in 2003 through 2007.

CPennypacker:skullkrusher: odinsposse: skullkrusher: how does one go about legally not paying taxes for 10 years? Maybe that's why Mittens won't release his returns. They don't exist.

It may be possible. If, for example, you're living off saving and investments then you only pay a capital gains tax rate. You aren't paying taxes on ordinary income because you don't have any.

which is what everyone expected was the case. That would appear on a tax return though. Paying NO taxes is quite another feat altogether

Its quite possible that Mittens harvested losses and paid no taxes

getting around the AMT though? Not an accountant but this all sounds sketchy imo. I think the UBS account amnesty is a more likely explanation of why he didn't release his returns. The fines and back taxes paid on that would show up on a return

ManateeGag: Since this is CNN reporting, it could be the exact opposite for all we know.

Um, it's CNN, not Fox. CNN may be incompetent, but they aren't the liars of Fox.

True, but everyone knows that when CNN reports something you need to doublecheck that they haven't hosed it again. I'll give them the credit that they're not necessarily intentionally bullshiatting like FOX does.

CNN is proof positive that you should not attribute to malice what is better attributed to incompetence. They're dumb as a bag of hammers. Although I am inclined to believe Mitt Romney is shadier than a live oak, I'm going to wait until this is confirmed by an organization that isn't the international symbol for cranial-rectal inversion.

FishStampede:Derp up there does actually bring up a good point, that the oft-used argument about people who pay zero federal income tax is they still pay other taxes like sales tax, social security, etc. If Mitt paid zero income tax, it's true he still probably paid taxes everywhere. Unless he managed to completely write off his homes as churches, buy everything online but have a minion pick it up from the distributor thus avoiding S&H, etc. That would just be completely silly.

We can be outraged about him not paying INCOME taxes at his level of wealth, but we do have to acknowledge he put into the pot somewhere along the way, even if he might have put a ten in but taken a buck or two back out and snickered as he walked away.

So Mitt Romney pays the same amount of taxes as an illegal alien? THAT'S a talking point!

It may be possible. If, for example, you're living off saving and investments then you only pay a capital gains tax rate. You aren't paying taxes on ordinary income because you don't have any.

which is what everyone expected was the case. That would appear on a tax return though. Paying NO taxes is quite another feat altogether

Its quite possible that Mittens harvested losses and paid no taxes

getting around the AMT though? Not an accountant but this all sounds sketchy imo. I think the UBS account amnesty is a more likely explanation of why he didn't release his returns. The fines and back taxes paid on that would show up on a return

Would he have to pay AMT if he harvested enough losses to bring his net capital income to 0 though? Someone with that much in assets could easily do it, especially with the markets so volatile in the last decade.

How about because a lot of the loopholes, dodges and write-offs that we know Romney availed himself of in the one year he did release are legal but politically toxic? Not to beat a dead dressage horse, but even if Romney didn't do anything technically illegal, he and his cohorts helped create the system that he's been successfully milking for decades. Carried interest, low capital gains taxation rates and absurd write-offs for luxury items may be legal, but even someone as out-of-touch as Romney is knows that the average voter would be outraged at what a sweet deal he's gotten for years, all while crying that he's being unfairly, heavily taxed. Why are you pretending not to understand this?

What's sad is that Romney could release his returns and reveal that he paid no taxes for ten years, took advantage of the Swiss amnesty, donated no money to his church, and gave millions to the Church of Satan, and at least 40% of the country - including practically all of the Midwest and South - would still vote for him.

Everyone always talks about the "clash of civilizations" between Islam and Christianity - the real clash is between fundamentalist religion and intellectual progress (and the fundamentalists are outbreeding the moderate religious and intellectuals).

Boxcutta:How stupid is Harry Reid to double down on this stuff? There is, simply, no way that he did not pay any income tax over the last ten years. This will not increase the call for Mitt to release his returns, plus it's just disingenuous. He knows better than to take some guy's word for it at Bain. Now, when Mitt releases the returns, any amount of tax paid will have overcome the incredibly high burden that Reid just set. Why, oh why, must the Democrats insist on snatching defeat at every opportunity?

If he filed them and not released them, then he's hiding something that would hurt his campaign.If he hasn't filed them, then he's paying penalties which are worth less than what he's getting out of delaying. Either there's something that would hurt his campaign or he's reworking the numbers to pay even less in taxes.

No matter what the situation is, I can't imagine this behavior entices the undecideds which end up deciding the election.

It may be possible. If, for example, you're living off saving and investments then you only pay a capital gains tax rate. You aren't paying taxes on ordinary income because you don't have any.

which is what everyone expected was the case. That would appear on a tax return though. Paying NO taxes is quite another feat altogether

Its quite possible that Mittens harvested losses and paid no taxes

getting around the AMT though? Not an accountant but this all sounds sketchy imo. I think the UBS account amnesty is a more likely explanation of why he didn't release his returns. The fines and back taxes paid on that would show up on a return

My guess is the claim of no taxes is based upon a misrepresentation of paying such an absurdly low rate that he paid a virtually 0% tax rate.

Either that or a complete fabrication to get Romney to go defensive, since he's shown time and again that he's bad at defense and chock full of hubris.

CPennypacker:Would he have to pay AMT if he harvested enough losses to bring his net capital income to 0 though? Someone with that much in assets could easily do it, especially with the markets so volatile in the last decade.

That would have to be carried forward losses (I think). Considering how much he made in the 90s, how could he have possibly had enough losses carried forward to wipe out his tax liability for a decade?

IIRC, some Bain funds were incorporated in Bermuda which has no income tax - as a result he wouldn't have been required to pay any income taxes on gains realized there but once he repatriated any of that money he would be liable.

God I hate taxes... well tax law at least. Taxes suck a bucket of monkey cocks too but I like road.

I can see why they're pounding on this as much as they are. Crap like this is what got Obummer elected to the Senate. If Romney had done anything wrong, the IRS would be crawling up his ass, so he should just stay on message and fook these people.

Shrugging Atlas:More_Like_A_Stain: Rann Xerox: I wonder if anyone out there who wanted to be Romney's VP pick is suddenly having a change of heart.

You're assuming that anyone wanted to be his VP pick. I'm reminded of the old Firesign Theater bit about a kamikaze training session. After a detailed description of just exactly how the mission will be performed, the Commander asks "are there any questions?". A hand goes up in the back of the room, and a pilot asks "are you farking crazy?".

They'll be people that want to be his VP pick for the same reason people buy lottery tickets: "There's always a chance!"

The problem for Romney is anyone that thinks they can win in 2016 won't hitch their wagon to his campaign. Anyone that wants to be an honest to god useful VP and have a say in policy matters (like Biden demanded) won't either since there's absolutely zero chance Romney would even consider their opinion on anything, much less seek it out.

A VP role under Romney will be a killer for anyone that has aspirations for the presidency combined with a chance to actually become President. It's a complete dead-end.

That leaves us with a bunch of nobodies that hope like hell he wins and hope like hell he wins again in 2016 so they can parlay that gig into a run of their own in 2020. See Pawlenty, Tim as an example. Visibly desperate to become President. Delusional to the point he thinks he can succeed. And shameless enough to sign up with Romney in an attempt to make it happen.

If people thought the GOP Presidential candidates were the B-list of the Party this year, just farking wait until they get a hold of the VP options.

skullkrusher:CPennypacker: Would he have to pay AMT if he harvested enough losses to bring his net capital income to 0 though? Someone with that much in assets could easily do it, especially with the markets so volatile in the last decade.

That would have to be carried forward losses (I think). Considering how much he made in the 90s, how could he have possibly had enough losses carried forward to wipe out his tax liability for a decade?

IIRC, some Bain funds were incorporated in Bermuda which has no income tax - as a result he wouldn't have been required to pay any income taxes on gains realized there but once he repatriated any of that money he would be liable.

God I hate taxes... well tax law at least. Taxes suck a bucket of monkey cocks too but I like road.

They don't have to be carried. You can generate new realized losses at the end of the calendar year to offset any gains/dividends/carried interest you earned.

It may be possible. If, for example, you're living off saving and investments then you only pay a capital gains tax rate. You aren't paying taxes on ordinary income because you don't have any.

which is what everyone expected was the case. That would appear on a tax return though. Paying NO taxes is quite another feat altogether

Its quite possible that Mittens harvested losses and paid no taxes

getting around the AMT though? Not an accountant but this all sounds sketchy imo. I think the UBS account amnesty is a more likely explanation of why he didn't release his returns. The fines and back taxes paid on that would show up on a return

Would he have to pay AMT if he harvested enough losses to bring his net capital income to 0 though? Someone with that much in assets could easily do it, especially with the markets so volatile in the last decade.

IIRC, AMT is based on taxable income. If you have a net capital income of 0, no AMT impact for you.

Also, from Wiki: "A Romney spokesman noted that Romney did not accept a salary while he was Governor and that he paid for his personal and political travel".

So I am not sure why people think that he had a lot of taxable income during that period. It isn't as if he needed to draw a paycheck or sell stock.

As someone who just had to update his SF-86 (security clearance) paperwork, that requires full disclosure of foreign assets, access to credit reports, full access to medical records, copies of my birth certificate and passport, etc. I'm getting a kick.